


Right Conduct

by thegildedmagpie



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Cognitive Dissonance, Consent Issues, Cousin Incest, Dubious Consent, F/M, Gondolin, Grief/Mourning, Hair Kink, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Torture, Incest, Incest Kink, M/M, Multi, Oral Sex, Parent/Child Incest, Sexual Fantasy, Slavery, Threesome - F/M/M, Tuor has a morality fetish, a little on Tuor's part, ambiguous consent, and then more Oral Sex, background/hinted at/contemplated, because Maeglin is Tuor and Idril's unicorn, grief is complicated, in my headcanon elves have a species-wide hair kink, it's not just the consent actually this fic is Ambiguity Central, kissing cousins, not that he wants to admit that, sad emo Maeglin in the rain, so much Oral Sex, withdrawal method birth control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-27 04:19:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5033485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegildedmagpie/pseuds/thegildedmagpie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tuor is intent on doing what's right under the law of the Valar.  He's pretty sure he knows what that is, most days.  Idril, less legalistic, helps her new husband come to terms with an unlawful desire - and in fact, she'd be only too happy to help him make it a reality.  </p>
<p>They don't really question their assumption that Maeglin is all right with this.  At least, not until it's rather too late to ask him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Right Conduct

**Author's Note:**

> -  
> There's a verse form called the "crown" in which first and last words repeat each other -- you might write a crown of sonnets, for example. Well, this is a crown of drabbles -- 27 of them, to be precise, and a triple drabble (trabble?) to finish.
> 
> I am slightly beholden to Maure's lovely Idril/Tuor/Maeglin moment in her "Ship Amnesty Night" ficlet collection. http://archiveofourown.org/works/824242/chapters/1578499 I was very curious what it was that Maeglin says in bed with Tuor ... and, while I found that tender relationship quite compelling, I wanted to take the question in a more ambiguous direction.
> 
> Please note that, in an attempt to de-white-ify the canon a bit, I've always written some Avari and Teleri characters as darker-skinned than most of the Noldor, including Eöl and Maeglin. Yes, Tolkien says explicitly that Maeglin is pale, but Tolkien also never said elves have pointy ears.
> 
> Also note that "thou" is used as a familiar second-person pronoun on an occasion or two.  
> -

He expected to find Maeglin as rigid and unyielding as the bars of the galvorn gates he'd made in his forge. It was with surprise and gratitude that he learned that once gotten into bed, Maeglin was less like worked metal and more like boiled honey: dark, rich, supple, a seductive pleasure that seared your skin even before you realized you were burning. His climax tasted almost sweet to Tuor, unlike the bitter emissions he'd swallowed in the place of his enslavement; there was a freshness to it, though altogether unlike the sweetness between the legs of an Elven woman.

-

Women (and men) of Turgon's court had expressed little interest in Tuor before Idril began to look for him. He did not blame them. The hair on his chest and jawline, the coarseness of his locks, even his height marked him as different.

He'd noticed Idril from the beginning – how could he not? – and had made a pastime of comparing her features to those of to her kinsman who stood at the other side of the king's throne.

He thrived on their differences as he expected to be spurned for his own, and he never noticed the contradiction.

-

Contradicting Idril was rarely wise. But though his new wife confided her fantasies to him, illustrating in words her mind's private pleasures, he balked, embarrassed, refusing her requests to tell his own imaginings in kind.

“What do you think so shameful?” she finally pressed him, irritated when telling him her own wish – rubbing her delicate self in the coarseness of his golden hair – brought fulfillment, but not reciprocation.

He winced, lay back to look at their chamber's pale ceiling. “I imagine wrong things,” he said at last. “And I finish – thinking of feeling that it's right.”

-

Right and wrong had been twinned obsessions for Tuor since his youth. In Mithrim, he'd sought to please by learning correctness, and in Lorgan's house, he'd survived by imagining the behavior that would be correct in the eyes of the Valar, contrasting it with the horror he suffered and saw others suffer. Words beat in his mind like an anguished prayer: _This is wrong. This is wrong. This is wrong._

That bore him through three years' enslavement and four years' loneliness in the Caves of Androth, and the first words Ulmo spoke to him were: _Wrong has been done you._

-

“You don't understand,” Tuor said despairingly to Idril, vibrant with the life that grew within her. It was some survival instinct in elves that made the parents of unborn children so continually passionate with each other. This hunger for one another had also redoubled Idril's determination. She would know all of him, she averred, and she wanted what he was thinking when he was under her, when the guttural groan of climax was upon him. “I have been – so greatly blessed, given a chance to do right where wrong was done me; how can I want wrong things?”

-

Things that Tuor loved about Idril included these:

The way she walked, barefoot except when the cobbles were frosted or burning in the sun, light and noiseless as the sacred hunter. 

The way her pale tresses curled upward at the end.

The way she spoke to her father, utterly respectful, but brightly answering him if he hinted at a path she would not herself take.

The way she cast a light on all others about her, lighting them up with a glow of beauty and of joy in beauty, of knowledge that the world was fair enough to live for.

-

For all her determination, Idril did not get the secret from him until they had been married nearly a year. “Is it someone else you think of?” she asked at last.

His eyes flew open.

She'd been looking at him from where her head lay pillowed on his breast. Now her eyes widened even as her lips thinned.

“Idril,” he said at once, “Idril, dearest, none could draw my love away from you. One caught my eye, but it is nothing – nothing.”

After an eon, she softened and put her head to one side. “What if it need not be nothing?” she asked.

-

Asking Maeglin to attend them was a task that fell to Idril. Tuor knew Maeglin saw him as a rival, elevated before time to Turgon's council – and who often disagreed with the House of the Mole. 

Tuor's breath caught when the door opened to the brusque, tapping fingers – when Maeglin's eyes, which oft flashed bright below the smoky cloak of his lashes when he bent his head to look up at a questioner, or gleamed askance at Tuor in council, looked through the door and landed on the man standing with his heart in his throat behind Idril. 

-

Idril promised him that nothing was wrong with his desire – not that it was for another man, not that it was for her cousin – in fact, she'd snorted delicately at the idea. “My father's brother was his cousin's lover,” she pointed out. “Aredhel bedded all but one of Fëanor's sons – so she told me, yes! My father would gladly have seen me wed _Maeglin_ – it would have solved so many problems. That my father takes no lover does not mean that no Noldo chooses this way to celebrate one another's beauty – and so shall thee.”

-

“Thou art lovely,” Tuor had breathed in Maeglin's ear that first night, and Maeglin shuddered in his hands, looking to Idril. “Aye, yes, she is lovely too – but so art thee. Do you not know it?” Maeglin looked between them, appearing a little trapped, then melted when Tuor whispered in his ear again, trying to restrain the passion in his tones, but knowing his voice came out needy and forceful: “Dost thou know it, Maeglin?”

Tuor had learned that Idril could be brought to ecstasy with lips at her pointed ears. Maeglin trembled in just the same way.

-

Ways of bringing Maeglin to their rooms were many. Maeglin's sharp gaze never failed to perceive their signals; he'd turn up later when others were abed. Idril would catch his eye and tilt her head toward their door, sometimes even in king's council. Or she'd beckon with a single finger, as though she only stroked condensation from her wine-glass.

Tuor sometimes remembered that Lorgan used to summon him thus, crooking a finger, reveling in Tuor's humiliation as he had to come forth like a called dog. He would have died before treating Maeglin thus, so he put aside his discomfort.

-

Discomfort furrowed Maeglin's brow as Tuor entered him one night, but the elf was silent. Still, he usually was, so Tuor thought it right to ask: “Are you well? Do you need more oil?”

Maeglin looked at him with flashing eyes, the light of them somehow darkening irises that were already a true, alien black. “I'm fine,” he said tightly, candlelight reflecting on lips glossed with Idril's moisture, creating flickering brands of fire.

Idril was lying back against the pillows, spent, caressing Maeglin's raven hair where it fell silken across her lap. She said softly, “Of course you are, kinsman.”

-

Kin Maeglin and Idril were, and Tuor liked to watch them together. Firelight – or moonlight – would make their features' shadows align in unearthly perfection, bringing out the matching cool undertones in Idril's pearly skin and Maeglin's darker coloring. When they kissed before Tuor, he'd remind himself that Idril believed it proper – even as their similarities sent refreshed pulses darting through his girth.

But this too was glorious. He moaned freely, fingers tightening on dark wrists to bring both their arms close about his wife, as Maeglin's solidity behind him, inside him, bore him into Idril's beneficent wetness.

-

Wet days suited Maeglin best. Barely covered by a light silk robe, he stood in deep shadow on their balcony, looking over the rain-drummed city. Cut short for safety in the forge, his black hair didn't flatten in the rain, but separated into damp, pretty locks that arrayed themselves beautifully around the points of his ears.

“That is _my_ robe,” Idril laughed behind Tuor, transfixed in the doorway. “Come away lest someone see you and know we are violating all the laws there are.”

Tuor and Maeglin jolted as one, turning to her.

“I jest,” she smiled gently.

-

Gentleness seemed not to be easy for Maeglin to take. He accepted Idril's caresses even when light as dew-strung cobwebs, but soon he clasped her eagerly, as though half-frightened she'd leave him with nothing more than those touches. He was more willing to accept her softness when Tuor was already inside him.

Not easy, gentleness – but Tuor sometimes needed to give it, to remind himself that these beautiful ones were not forced to bear his presence. He'd clasp Maeglin's back against his chest and hold him, stroking his body while he took him slow and Idril rested beside them.

-

They were not so gentle, other times, nor – at least in Tuor and Idril's case – so quiet. Their passion for one another was not slaked after Eärendil's birth. Tuor was endlessly grateful to Idril for drawing out his secret and telling him he need not feel shame, for bringing Maeglin to him for all their pleasure – and still wanting Tuor after her beautiful cousin, in company or alone.

But even when he threw his head back in the lashings of passion, even when Tuor's mouth or fingers brought him to his peak, Maeglin was almost always silent.

-

Silence about their passion was sometimes hard. One day in the king's council-chamber when Maeglin was being particularly supercilious about some point of governance, Tuor's eyes landed on the clasp of his cloak. A beautiful garment, black velvet without, madder crimson within, and trimmed in soft black fox – perfect setting for a dark jewel. But if Tuor should put out a hand to push aside the hood, he'd get to see proud Maeglin scramble for an explanation of the love-bite on his neck.

It was an unworthy urge. How could he have any impulse to bring his lover shame?

-

Shame was sometimes a part of their lovemaking, Tuor had to acknowledge to Idril; yes, even still, he'd be plagued by such thoughts. Annael had cautioned him not to let himself become an exotic dainty to those unused to mortals when he was young – which was exactly what he'd become in his captivity. He'd gathered the idea that men should not do these things together – still less, kin by marriage – least of all, one committed to a fair bride.

Patiently she gave him, again and again, the gift of listening – and after, freedom from this guilt.

-

Guilt didn't even touch Maeglin's face the night that Idril asked him, jesting at his always overeager reach for her, his always hungry kiss, “Are you trying to claim me, cousin?”

Maeglin turned on them both a look that glittered almost savagely. Tuor was uneasily reminded of the tales of his lover's father – a night-born thing, a wicked creature who had turned at bay like vicious prey of a hunt. “Do you not see, lady, how worth claiming you are?”

“She is well worth it,” Tuor agreed in fervent tones of worship, and they came together around her.

-

Her hair was ever wound around all their lovemaking, its silken touch, its muted golden color, its sleek fall. Maeglin was in the habit of pressing kisses to her locks, and sometimes Tuor would catch his mouth around them, their tongues playing beneath the wisps. Idril would laugh in silver merriment and draw the tresses tight, a gossamer bit in Tuor's mouth, or in Maeglin's. Single strands would catch on Tuor's stubble, making Maeglin pick them free and return them to the mass of Idril's hair with an impression of fussy perfectionism so convincing that Tuor, too, had to laugh.

-

Laughter filled the room from her throat again as she held each in one hand, letting her hair drift over them, one knee between Maeglin's legs and one between Tuor's. Skeins of light tresses wound each shaft, and she stroked them slowly, hands firm as she twisted her locks ever tighter.

Maeglin came first, back bowing so hard he risked injuring himself on Idril's thigh. Idril released Tuor to rut against her knee – which he did, breathless in his tribute to her flawlessness. She spread her hands like a goddess. “Who could deny my beauties?” she whispered. “Not I.”

-

“I wonder sometimes,” Tuor confessed, “if Maeglin always likes what we do.”

Maeglin had just left, and Tuor and Idril lay in a bed still warmed by passion, drowsing as the first light stole into Tumladen.

Idril stretched magnificently, pointing her toes between Tuor's calves. “Of course he does.”

She sounded so assured that he dropped the matter. But she had not seen how Maeglin looked earlier tonight, when she'd leaned behind him to urge him into her husband; and later, when Maeglin was on his back, Tuor recovered and throbbing inside him, she hadn't heard Maeglin whisper _Father._

-

Fathering another child seemed timely to Tuor; Idril said “Not yet,” but they were willing enough if she should quicken. A child by Maeglin, though, would be disastrous. His black Avari eyes alone would have made a child's parentage clear if they bred true; and otherwise? Even with dark hair in the family from Idril's grandfather, such coloring would be impossible from the union of two so golden as Idril and Tuor.

“You know why we musn't,” Idril would gasp as she drew her well-laved cleft along Maeglin's flushed length – before crawling up to ride his mouth again.

-

Again and again, Tuor counseled himself to forget what he'd heard in his ear that night, so strangled, when Maeglin's body was desperate. When Idril asked what troubled him, he answered, “Something Maeglin said.”

She rolled her eyes some scornfully. “Ignore him. He's never learnt to temper speech.”

Tuor knew he'd no right to judge incest – if he believed it wrong in essence, must he not judge himself wrong, too? And it was easier, for he did not suspect Turgon. Even if he could picture ... _that_ , he didn't think Maeglin had ever used that title for the king.

-

Kingly as Turgon was, Tuor had come to love him, and he found that Turgon's opinion mattered deeply to him. What would he say if he knew of this? Was it true that all his family had made lovers of first cousins? That he did not disapprove? But how not? And how not indeed, when Tuor knew it would seem to outsiders that his desire betrayed Turgon's daughter?

Still, one day he thanked Turgon for a talk by calling him Father, and he knew from the covert way Turgon's eyes lit up that Maeglin had never given him that name.

-

Names of love fell so gloriously from Idril's lips.

She called Tuor _my love, my lord, my beloved, my own, my sweet beloved._

She called Maeglin _lovely shadow_ sometimes, though she stopped when she noticed how it made him twitch, and otherwise _cousin_ and _kinsman_. A thrill ran through Tuor to hear her urge their lover on with those words while his tongue was busy between her legs, or while his mouth was competing with Tuor's mouth to reach the heart of her pleasure. _Wrong things – and I finish feeling that they're right._

Both of them she called _beauty._

-

Beautiful as Maeglin was, Tuor found him much improved by the scent of Idril on his mouth and hands. He reveled in Idril's paleness with Maeglin as a backdrop and in Maeglin's darkness when compared to the skin of her hips or buried in the light river of her hair. He liked the contrast of her small, lithe power against the controlled, slender muscularity that marked an elven blacksmith in his prime of strength. And he thought Maeglin never so lovely as when his lashes dropped and his look turned momentarily inward as Idril's fingers slipped inside. 

-

Inside the heart there are many secrets. Tuor would tell himself this platitude often in later years, repeating it by way of comfort when he asked himself certain questions. 

Particularly, he told it to himself when the loremaster asked his part in the tale. It guided his words when they placed Eärendil on the battlements that night, substituting the crime of child-slaying for the crime of rape in his account of Idril's treacherous kinsman. He thought it again when he was asked which parts of the story of Gondolin, too complex a story to ever be told in its fullness, ought most to be confided to history.

Had Maeglin somehow hidden the marks of torture on his body, using some arcane magic of Morgoth's? Had he suffered the burns and lashes invisibly, even as he lay beneath them?

His absence had not seemed any longer than usual. Should they have noticed? Should they not have assumed he was absorbed in some project and would emerge, soot-streaked and impatient, to show them some new metal wonder?

Though he knew they'd made Maeglin no promises, and that nothing could have invited such a betrayal – was there something they should have done to help him keep from breaking?

Why, _why_ had he not spoken?

Would Tuor ever be sure which had been the false promise that twisted Maeglin's will? Perhaps it had been _you can have her._ Perhaps it had been _you can save her._

Inside the heart there are many secrets, Tuor reminded himself. The words reassured him. Maeglin would have scoffed. But then, Maeglin's undying memory could just be silent – _silent as you always were in our bed,_ Tuor thought with a swell of righteous anger. 

Maeglin had proven able to tell rightness from wrongness even less than he.


End file.
